NEWS & EVENTS

Dordt College News

New Hop scholarship to benefit area students attending Dordt

A new scholarship at Dordt College has been established by a Rock Rapids native to honor his mother, his hometown, and the schools he attended in his youth.

Denny Hop (Dordt College Class of ’77) is now a resident of Calgary, AB, where his occupation is wealth management. He returned to Rock Rapids Friday, July 30, to host a luncheon honoring his mother, Gerdena Hop, on her 85th birthday.

With about 25 friends and family members in attendance, Hop signed and presented Dordt personnel with the Gerdena Hop Den Ouden Scholarship Agreement, a scholarship fund that offers four scholarships annually at Dordt College.

The Gerdena Hop Den Ouden Scholarship will benefit a student from Rock Rapids attending Western Christian; a student at Western Christian who is majoring in music; a student at Southwest Christian High (Edgerton, Minn.) majoring in music; and an area woman’s basketball player who intends to attend Dordt College.

A pair of annual scholarships honoring Denny’s father, Jake Hop, are already in place at Dordt College and have already benefitted a dozen recipients from the Rock Rapids area who play men’s basketball, as Denny did while attending Dordt.

The new scholarships are a reflection of Gerdena’s appreciation of music and Christian education, as well as extending scholarship funding to a woman’s basketball player.

Gerdena Den Ouden was a native of Edgerton, Minn. After marriage, Jake and Gerdena Hop raised their family in the Rock Rapids area, with the children attending Western Christian High School in Hull. Gerdena now lives in Omaha, near her daughter Jean Madden.

Dordt College currently has about 100 donor-funded scholarships, and more than 13 percent of last year’s students received a donor-funded scholarship.

PHOTO: Pictured are Gerdena Hop (seated), with Jean Madden and Denny Hop, who established four annual scholarships at Dordt College in honor of Gerdena’s 85th birthday.